Trial 1117 August 2026Method
My oven lies by 40 degrees
Six probe readings against the dial, and the correction curve I now bake to.
The dial said 450 °C. The stone said 412 °C. That gap is the difference between a 90-second bake and a 2-minute one, which is the difference between a Neapolitan and a slightly sad flatbread.
Reading the floor, not the air
Most domestic ovens report air temperature somewhere near the element. What matters for pizza is the surface the dough lands on, and a biscotto stone takes a long time to catch up with the air around it — twenty minutes past the point the oven says it is ready.
I took six readings with an infrared thermometer at five-minute intervals from cold, then again after a bake, because the floor drops sharply the moment a cold ball hits it and the recovery time is the real constraint on how fast you can go.
The wider point is that every figure in a recipe is measured on someone else’s equipment. Hydration transfers. Times transfer. Temperatures do not, and they are the ones most likely to be quoted with the most confidence.
Figures on this page are placeholder content while the log is being kept properly.